Is the modern Japanese Pokemon card market in a speculative bubble? Pt. 2

I made this thread on March 20th 2023: Is the modern Japanese Pokemon card market in a speculative bubble? We are running it again to see if the sentiment has shifted at all. The original thread is hidden until this one gets results.

Do you agree with this statement:

Modern Japanese Pokemon cards are in a speculative bubble.
  • Strongly agree
  • Agree
  • Neutral
  • Disagree
  • Strongly disagree

0 voters

Every Lillie card is stonking through the stratosphere.

Who knows what’s happening but sustainable it ain’t.

4 Likes

I still don’t really understand what the bubble is meant to be for.

1 Like

I think some cards are definitely being pumped hard, but I wouldn’t say the entire market is in a bubble. The majority of cards are doing just fine.

7 Likes

respect the pump, and the pump will come to you.

2 Likes

I think I chose ‘disagree’ last time, because it felt like the stonking was limited to a few cards, that people just wanted and were afraid of missing out on because there wasn’t a huge amount supply.

It feels different now.

4 Likes

I put strongly agree this time as the pump is now 5-10x’ing set cards that were not that difficult to pull.

2 Likes

I watched quite literally every psa 10 battle festa Pikachu of all years that was under 1k get completely swallowed up yesterday (check eBay sold)… not sure what to think about it.

4 Likes

If I start to feel FOMO for cards that I don’t even care about, that’s pretty good indication that there’s a bubble. :bubbles:

9 Likes

Exactly! Bubble and Scam are some of the biggest buzzwords in collectibles.

3 Likes

Maybe instead of “bubble” we can say, “irrationally-increased demand paired with temporarily-low supply.”

2 Likes

Yeah it’s just tough because I agree set cards still in production skyrocketing in price are obviously speculative. Where Festa pikas feel more like, where is the cheaper option?

2 Likes

Or we can just say bubble

9 Likes

To be fair, the festas are underappreciated compared to the ponchos. Similar psa pop to the ponchos and given in a competition setting. Art arguably more busy and less iconic, but they shouldn’t be like 1/4 the price of a poncho

4 Likes

Yes, that’s the joke :upside_down_face:

2 Likes

I am the Tulio to your Miguel

4 Likes

When the regular holo Lillie set card is spiking, you know something is up.

2 Likes

All I’m saying

I 100% agree, I do own a couple and love them too (except not a huge fan of 2015). I guess them all being bought out in a singular day was what I was referring to. Wasn’t sure if it was an individual trying to speed up a price hike or if the supply starting drying up enough where the fomo kicked in and everyone was snagging their copies while they could.

1 Like

Think this would be easier to answer if the question was split into categories such as set cards, promos, trainer gallery (read: waifus), sealed product etc.

I guess my answer/opinion to the market as a whole would be no, barring some specific elements of speculation within it. Even then, whether those speculative elements (such as weird AF waifus or black label set cards) could be considered ‘bubbles’ depends on what precisely we mean by bubble. E.g. inorganic price growth that will ‘pop’ and see rapid decline, inorganic price growth that will see decline over time, or simply stating that things are overpriced compared with their fundamentals. Or maybe I’m overthinking this whole question :rofl: